


Alliances of Necessity

by theZanyArthropleura



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Ableism, Free Ryloth Movement, Fulcrum Network (Star Wars), Gen, Past Abuse, Prosthetics, Twi'leks (Star Wars), slavery mentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 09:07:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29524080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theZanyArthropleura/pseuds/theZanyArthropleura
Summary: Ryloth was not a homecoming, but she’d never been promised that.
Relationships: Rianna Saren & Cham Syndulla, Rianna Saren & Z-58-O | Zeeo
Kudos: 1





	Alliances of Necessity

She moved through the crowd like she was supposed to be there, ignoring the looks that would have been cast her way regardless of the fact her light jog probably broke the socially-agreed-upon speed limit in a forum reserved for dining and casual conversation.

The open cavern, with tables spaced about a gently-sloping floor carved into tiers, denied her a designated travel lane anyway, as her destination wasn’t the half-circle, diner-style counter built against the far wall at the lowest point. She kept her sights on a two-seated table on one of the higher tiers in the northern corner, out of the way enough to avoid even the moderate volume the dining space might ascend to. Twi’leks were a quiet people.

In the unavoidable golden tint of the light – despite the best efforts to brighten the place enough that it wouldn’t feel as deep underground as it was – Cham’s pale-ish orange skin almost matched her own darker, more vibrant shade. It was hard to tell how long he’d been waiting, but a small appetizer plate had been pushed to the side, utensils crossed.

“General Syndulla,” she acknowledged with a nod, gripping the back of the empty chair and vaulting herself into a cross-legged seating position.

“Commander Saren,” Cham greeted with a nod of his own, signing _caution, affection_.

Rianna signed back _confusion, irritation_ – because what use was a fluidly-segmented, motor-controlled prosthetic right lek wired into her nervous system if she didn’t use it with the one Twi’lek who’d deign to speak the language with her. “Isn’t there someplace better we could do this, like… oh, I don’t know, your office?”

Cham kept hesitantly stoic. “You should be among the people.”

Rianna rolled her eyes. “Should probably tell _the people_ that.”

With an inevitable sigh, Cham fell to a wince of guilt, looking down at the table. “I’m sorry your welcome here, has been so…”

“Non-existent?” Rianna prodded with an arched brow.

“Not everyone follows the old ways so strictly…” Cham was quiet, still not looking at her.

“But if they talk to me, they’d be shunned by the rest.” Rianna crossed her arms.

Cham finally moved, chancing a skeptical glance. “Can you be so sure that’s not the fault of this… _abrasive_ personality you insist on?”

“Gets to the same result faster, so what’s the difference?”

Cham sat back in his chair, signing _disappointment, exasperation, lack of surprise_. “I suppose that answers my question of how you’ve been adjusting.”

“You brought me here to train soldiers and lead combat ops, not to make friends,” Rianna recited half-disinterestedly, resting her elbow and forearm across the table. “I’ve held up my end, don’t ask the impossible.”

 _Regret, assurance_. “Soon enough, they’ll see your value. They need you, we all do. If Ryloth is to cast off both today’s Empire, and thousands of years of vulnerability to conquest, we need more than what we have. We need every help we can get, however the people choose to see it.”

Rianna was feeling combative, as usual. “ _Help_ that ends at anything even remotely involving the wider rebellion?”

Cham narrowed his eyes, signing _betrayal_ at Rianna’s smirk and looking just about ready to slam his fist on the table. “You know they will only ask of us what we cannot spare.”

“I heard the same message you did,” Rianna countered. “It’s just supplies, a whole transport full, no strings attached. We’d be better off if—”

“The answer is _no_ ,” Cham insisted coldly, though it faltered moments later, nearing a sigh.

Rianna arched another brow. “You won’t trust off-worlders, but you’ll bring in pilots from all over the galaxy—"

“We came to an arrangement. The Hellflyers ask nothing from us. They ask for _less_ than nothing.”

“Because they come here to die. To die for _us_. Is that what meets your standards, these days?”

Cham was quiet, doing his best to hide the sympathy he pretended not to have. “Ryloth has suffered enough. We cannot afford to be tied to other concerns, simply because the rest of the galaxy now knows what it is to be oppressed.”

“I never said I disagreed.”

It was Cham’s turn to arch a brow, signing _surprise, interest_. He was quiet, yet prodding, clearly expecting an elaboration.

Rianna crossed her arms again, pointedly denying him the admission he was looking for. “I’m just saying I would do things differently. In _your_ position. We shouldn’t be relying on just ourselves, a few suicidal mercenaries, and some _mythical vigilante woman in the desert_ to secure your people’s freedom.”

She wasn’t going to call him _paranoid_ to his face, less so imply Ryloth was suffering for it, but once he got past a troubled noting of the word ‘your,’ he looked like he could see it in her expression anyway. Rianna smirked half-bitterly.

“If you need me, you know where to find me,” Rianna concluded, standing as quickly and smoothly as she’d sat down.

Cham admitted nothing, but he didn’t stop her leaving.

  


* * *

  


She noticed the difference, on the long walk back through the underground base.

Cham was right, not _everyone_ gave her disgusted, wary looks, just most of them.

And maybe ‘disgusted’ _was_ a bit of an exaggeration, in most of those cases.

Some were even indifferent, and, well… by now, she supposed a few people here had direct reasons to be appreciative of her help, explaining the shyly-offered smiles.

There was the odd look of sympathy, and maybe a lot more of them than she’d consciously defined as such, but they were almost always accompanied by one type of fear or another.

She noticed, and pretended not to.

Ryloth was not a homecoming, but she’d never been promised that. She’d never dared to hope for it, however much Cham’s movement placed _reform_ in the same breath as _reclamation_ and _rebellion_. To be welcomed back in open, caring arms by the people she’d been stolen from was nothing but a faded, tear-streaked dream, and only when she was weak enough to let it be.

The moment she entered her small quarters, stumbling in her exhaustion as the door slid closed behind her, she heard the whirr of activating repulsors as Zeeo lifted off his charging port. In a buzz of excitement, the compact, vaguely spherical hovering droid fanned out his four aerial panels like the petals of a flower, hopping about in the air in front of her before performing several loops around the ceiling despite the limits of the cramped space.

At such a display, it was impossible to keep up her resigned grimace, the tenseness and slack of her shoulders all at once, or the sad longing buried deep down. Rianna smiled, and held up her braced left forearm for Zeeo to slap enthusiastically with his upper right panel – the most muted and subtle of their many rehearsed greetings.

“Thanks, Zeeo,” Rianna said fondly, with the last of her momentarily-renewed energy. She wandered over to the plain grey couch and promptly laid across it, the pillow against the armrest easing the tension built up in her skull as her mismatched lekku fell into the gap behind her.

Against the other wall, Zeeo set back down on his charging port. Three round droid eyes – right and top middle red, left green – lined up with hers. _The meeting was that tiring?_ he beeped with worry.

“Less the meeting, more the commute,” Rianna groaned with a sigh, but kept up her smile without difficulty. “I’ll be up in a minute, just need to catch my breath.”

She tested closing her eyes, then opened them again, finding it made little difference. Zeeo was quiet, but still attentive.

As she’d taken to more and more since they’d landed on Ryloth, she wondered what Zeeo saw when he looked at her. Was it all spatial parameters and biometric data? Or could he see how hurt she was, scarred inside and out from how much of her life she’d spent as a commodity? He never seemed to know of her brokenness, her pain, any more than in reference to what she’d confided aloud. He’d never shown judgement by any standard she didn’t herself set, and he’d never shown pity until they’d known each other well enough for it to be a comfort, instead.

If she really looked at him, Zeeo was a bit of a mismatch himself, between the eye arrangement and a few of his panel-halves being different colors than the others. It was consistent enough that she was _almost_ sure it was an intentional design choice, but it wasn’t unheard of for droids to be repaired with differently-colored parts from the same model. Either way, it wasn’t something she’d ever found concerning or even notable.

Maybe, on first glance, it had been a similar thought process the other way around.

Her drowsiness fading, she slid to her feet, and walked over to the window. More a circular porthole, really, overlooking the main fleet hangar and the sun filtering through the jagged teeth of the cavern entrance. Her own ship was parked off to the southern perimeter, away from the center floor where maintenance crews checked over the contingent of Z-95s and a few salvaged ARC-170s. To the north was the repair bay, where the mechanics were busy repairing and rewiring an impressive number of vulture droids and tri-fighters, set aside for some future engagement.

It was a Twi’lek operation, nearly to the last, all adapted to fill the various roles of a guerilla fighting force. Many of them were former slaves, that number growing with every transport halted, every village taken back, every on-world Hutt overthrown and gutted.

How many of them were broken like she was? Scarred, but in ways that didn’t make them outcasts? How many had been born into it, or taken as newborns – had never learned a language, spoken or otherwise, aside from huttese until they were free?

Every Twi’lek knew what it was to be a Twi’lek, or found out sooner or later. When Rianna wasn’t in the room herself, she could see how the others acted. It was shared grief and pain; it was the warmth to soothe it and the fire to overcome it.

She’d wanted that. She closed her eyes and remembered that she'd wanted that. How important she knew it would’ve been to her, how desperately she’d hoped. Before the rejection, the betrayal, the anger…

They were never going to take her back, as unthinkable as that was. To them, she was broken, pretending to be whole. She could _hate_ them if she wanted to, remind herself she owed them nothing. Nothing at all.

But some things were more important than that.

“Zeeo, get me an audience.”

The droid beeped happy acknowledgement, and opened a holocommunicator channel as Rianna sat at the edge of the desk, a familiar symbol projected in the air between them. Rianna waited and watched with an elbow on the table and her chin resting on a fist, debating with herself whether the severe lines and diamonds were meant to evoke a dagger, or a starfighter.

Almost a minute later, the symbol flickered out, replaced with the vague silhouette of an obscured presence in a hooded cloak.

“Fulcrum.”

 _“Commander Saren.”_ The hooded figure nodded greeting. _“Has General Syndulla become agreeable?”_

Rianna shook her head. “Still won’t be moved on this, but then I figure… what the General doesn’t _know_ , in time to stop it… might just end up helping a lot of people.”

_“Won’t that get you in trouble, compromise your position?”_

Rianna grinned. “That’s half the fun! Zeeo can slice any system in this place.” Of course, with their luck, they’d end up having to climb fully upside-down on the ceiling of the hangar to plant some kind of signal jammer, but they’d managed worse. “You get me a T.O.A., I’ll get you a parking spot,” she assured with a wink.

As physically still as the hooded disguise was supposed to remain to ensure secrecy, the next few seconds felt like something other than intentional. _“Acknowledged, I’ll forward you the info. It’s a pleasure working with you, Commander Saren.”_

“You’re getting better at this spy stuff,” Rianna laughed. “I almost _believed_ it that time.”


End file.
